


Ode to Joy

by violet_storms



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Bittersweet, F/F, Mild Sexual Content, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Nuclear War, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 15:41:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29334714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violet_storms/pseuds/violet_storms
Summary: We shall have everything we want and there’ll be no more dying.Margot, Freddie, and Alana at the end of the world.
Relationships: Alana Bloom/Freddie Lounds, Alana Bloom/Freddie Lounds/Margot Verger, Alana Bloom/Margot Verger
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	Ode to Joy

**Author's Note:**

> Title, quotations, etc. from Frank O'Hara's [Ode to Joy](https://theworldismadeofpaper.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/ode-to-joy-frank-ohara/).

_1\. we shall have everything we want and there’ll be no more dying_

The world ends on a Tuesday morning.

It happens slowly, and then it happens all at once. There have been sirens outside their windows for weeks, and the news broadcasts stopped months ago, but one day the sirens go silent, and that’s it: stasis. Alana steps outside their house for the first time since the missiles hit and can’t stop herself from feeling shocked. _So this is how it ends? Just like that?_

“Just like that,” echoes Margot from the doorway. They stare out over the barren landscape, the sun burning into their eyes, until the sound of her phone ringing pulls Alana from the reverie. She checks the display, doesn’t recognize the number, and answers anyway. What can it hurt?

“Hello, Dr. Bloom,” drawls a voice full of static.

“Freddie?” says Alana. “You’re alive?”

“It’s hard to get rid of me,” says the reporter. “Listen. My house is on fire. The world is over. Can I come over and have a cup of coffee?”

“For old times’ sake?” says Alana, whose face is beginning to go numb.

“Something like that.”

“You can come over.”

So that’s how it ends, and that’s how it begins: Tuesday morning. The apocalypse. Old times.

  


_2\. on the pretty plains or in the supper clubs_

“You really don’t have a clue what’s been going on,” says Freddie, leaning, arms crossed, against one of their boarded-up windows. Alana sits with Margot on the couch, Morgan tucked safely between them.

“No one has a clue what’s going on,” says Margot. “There’s a media blackout. The entire government could be dead for all we know.”

“Oh, the entire government probably _is_ dead,” says Freddie. “That’s not what I meant. How long has it been since you two left the house?”

“We stockpiled after the first scare, then locked down after the first strike," says Alana. "We have enough supplies to last a while.”

“Must be nice,” says Freddie. “The rest of us don’t have the Verger millions to ensure our survival. I’m not asking you to apologize for anything,” she adds, as Margot opens her mouth. “In fact, I have to respect what you’ve done with this. But..it’s chaos out there.” She finally meets Alana’s gaze. “You won’t be safe here for long, Alana.”

“And you care...why?”

“You were at my funeral,” says Freddie simply. “You were sad I was dead.”

“Yes.”

“You’re sort of all I have.”

“That’s depressing,” says Margot. Freddie cracks a smile.

“What isn’t anymore?”

  


_3\. for our symbol we’ll acknowledge vulgar materialistic laughter_

And so they leave.

They bring with them only what is necessary, and Alana can see that pains Margot. All the wealth she worked for, the house they killed her brother for, the life she wanted for so long; gone. Useless now.

They bring with them their son. Morgan is not quite two years old. He doesn’t understand what’s going on, doesn't know that his entire future has been taken from him in one fell swoop. It would probably make Alana sad if she had time for sadness, but she doesn’t, so she isn’t. That can wait.

They bring with them Freddie Lounds. She was right; it’s hard to get rid of her. And strangely enough, Alana doesn’t want to. Not after they drive through the city and see the desecrated buildings, the abandoned houses, the fires. Not after Freddie tells her what happened to Jack, that Price and Zeller have long vanished, that she’s the only one who’s left. Alana will take any familiar faces she can get. Besides, Freddie hasn’t been locked up in her house for the past four months. She knows what’s going on, what the world is like now.

And another reason: Freddie still laughs. Not a cheerful laugh or even a bitter one—more of a hollow, ironic sound. But it is laughter, and Alana has not heard Margot laugh in a very long time.

Not that she can blame her.

  


_4\. over an insatiable sexual appetite_

They drive through a landscape that is somewhere in between dying and dead, unsteady on its final breaths. And empty. So, so empty. Occasionally when they pass a half-destroyed motel or another listless settlement, Margot will whisper that they never should have left their house. But Freddie shakes her head.

“The fires were spreading,” she reminds them. “Only a matter of time.”

And it was only a matter of time for this, too, Alana thinks. The three of them. It started when they left Maryland and Alana wept, with Margot’s hands on her back and Freddie’s tight around her wrists. And it went on in Pennsylvania when Freddie and Margot stood united in their decision: _we help only those we can afford to help, we trust no one,_ and then looked at each other as though surprised they agreed. Alana wasn’t.

And it continues here, in a lifeless hotel, on dusty sheets they are too tired to care about, with Morgan asleep in the connecting room and no other souls but theirs in miles. It continues with gasps that are harsh on the throat and sighs that taste like desperation, and Alana thinks, with Margot’s tongue whispering across her too-sharp collarbone and Freddie’s fingers sliding between her too-thin legs, that sex isn’t supposed to make you feel like a skeleton; but God, at least it’s making her feel something. She’ll take what she can get.

  


_5\. and the streets will be filled with racing forms_

Alana hates the way the world looks these days.

It’s more than the emptiness, although she hates that too. And it’s more than the colors, although she’s sick of seeing gray and brown and red everywhere they go. Alana hates the way the _world_ looks, the way it’s changed, the way they’ve changed.

They are not alone on the earth. They see others from time to time, the others Margot and Freddie do not trust. Alana offers her hand anyway. _Let me help you, let me save you._ But the lack of trust is mutual. No one wants to be helped or saved, at least not by her.

One day they’re almost robbed at knifepoint by a band of highwaymen. They’re in a stolen car they found, one with room in the back for raided supplies and space to sleep if they need to sleep there. They’ve pulled over to switch drivers and take a breath when a man springs from the woods and points a knife at Alana.

“Give us what you have,” he says, but Freddie is faster, drawing a gun with steady hands.

“I’ll shoot every last one of you,” she says. “I will.”

She will.

She doesn’t.

“I had more faith in humanity than this,” says Alana as they drive away, the man left behind in the middle of the road.

“I didn’t,” says Freddie, with Margot chiming after her.

“I didn’t, either.”

  


_6\. and the photographs of murderers and narcissists and movie stars_

Will and Hannibal are dead.

Alana knew that, of course she knew that, but hearing it from the traveler makes it suddenly feel real. They are sharing food with him, against Margot and Freddie’s better judgement, but he looked so thin when Alana saw him standing there on the curb, she couldn’t stand it. He told stories to Morgan and made him laugh, so Margot likes him, but Freddie’s eyes in the firelight are watchful and wary as he speaks.

“Italy got hit pretty bad,” he says through a mouthful of stale bread. “Last I heard, anyone who didn’t get evacuated got blown to pieces or died of the radiation poisoning.”

“Where’d you hear it?” Freddie wants to know. The man snorts.

“Used to be part of the government if you can believe it. Department of Revenue.”

“See, Freddie? They aren’t all dead,” says Alana. Freddie gives the man a critical look.

“Close enough,” she says.

  


_7\. will swell from the walls and books alive in steaming rooms_

Summer turns to some kind of fractured autumn. The further north they travel the more trees they see, and some even have red leaves, though most are warped and twisted. The sun blazes in the sky like a beacon. It isn’t getting any colder. Alana doesn’t know why she expected it to.

There is no running water in the apocalypse unless it comes from streams or lakes, so they have learned to live with a thin layer of dust covering them like a second skin. They wash when they can, parking somewhere safe and hanging up their clothes to dry on tree branches. Pennsylvania is a better state for this than Maryland was, but the air is thinner here, and Alana sometimes feels lightheaded. They drink from water bottles and eat packaged foods with expiration dates growing ever closer, or microwaveable meals they warm in a metal pot over the fire. There are no animals to hunt even if they wanted to, which they don’t. Freddie was a vegetarian once.

It is autumn, and they are alive. Both these things are true, but Alana often isn’t sure of either of them.

  


_8\. to press against our burning flesh not once but interminably_

They finally make it out of Pennsylvania, that endless state, but Margot cries when one day they see New York City in the distance, skyscrapers aflame, heat making the view shimmer like a mirage. Freddie purses her lips and takes the next exit. No Big Apple for them, not now, not ever.

They keep going north. When Alana asks where they will stop, when they will stop, Freddie answers, “Wherever and whenever we run out of gasoline.” There’s a lot of gasoline to steal, so maybe they’ll just keep driving for the rest of time. There are worse fates.

“Go directly to Canada,” says Freddie. “Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.”

“Canada?” asks Alana.

“I can’t imagine Canada’s on fire.”

“At this rate, we’ll end up at the North Pole,” says Margot.

“Let’s,” mumbles Morgan from the backseat. “I wanna see the penguins.”

 _Wrong Pole,_ thinks Alana, but can’t bring herself to say it.

  


_9\. as water flows down hill into the full-lipped basin_

Morgan is growing up, and Alana has time to be sad about it now, more time than she could ever need. She mourns for the most superficial details of the life he will not live. Her son will never ride a roller coaster. He will never wait in the checkout line at the grocery store. He will never. He will not.

Still, that he exists is a blessing to all three of them. They get him coloring books and action figures from empty stores and watch him play with them, listen to the sound of his laughter. They park the car for days on end so that they can teach him to walk, help him learn his letters, go sightseeing in abandoned cities.

Freddie isn’t good with kids, that much is obvious, but she makes an effort until eventually she doesn’t have to anymore. Morgan likes to hold her hand and admire her red hair. He likes to sit in Margot’s lap and sing nonsense songs. He likes to ask Alana questions. Why? Why? Why?

 _I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,_ she thinks. _You’re the one who’s teaching me._

  


_10\. and the adder dives for the ultimate ostrich egg_

Margot and Freddie trade looks behind Alana’s back sometimes when she speaks of the future as though it’s something certain, as though it’s something permanent. Neither of them are optimists. Never have been, never will be, and especially not now. They trade looks, but they do not counter her. “Let her believe,” whispers Margot over Alana’s sleeping form one night, and Freddie nods into the darkness.

Alana knows what they don’t. She is not an optimist. Never has been. She only says the things she does because no one else will, and she feels like someone should. Someone should pretend that things are going to be all right. Who else, if not her?

  


_11\. and the feather cushion preens beneath a reclining monolith_

Margot turns thirty-four. They have been keeping track of the days on Freddie’s digital watch. Alana gives her a pack of grocery-store cookies that are too full of preservatives to expire, and Freddie finds a dashboard toy that looks like one of those inflatable tube men outside car dealerships. She turns it on and the tiny man furls and unfurls, veering different directions whenever the car turns, and Margot laughs.

Later, Alana considers how much her standards for what makes a good day have changed, if Margot’s laughter and the chemical taste of icing have constituted the best day she’s had in a while.

  


_12\. that’s sweating with post-exertion visibility and sweetness_

They haven’t said “I love you,” in so long that when the sentence drifts from Alana’s mouth it feels foreign, almost unfamiliar. Margot’s head is on her chest and Freddie’s legs are tangled with her own. They’re in Vermont, or Maine, or maybe Canada by now. Alana threw the atlas out long ago.

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you.”

The words spill out and with them months and months of wound-up tension in Alana’s shoulders. She takes a deep breath. Her heart beats in Margot’s ear. At the tips of her fingers she can feel Freddie’s pulse.

It is the first day of winter.

  


_13\. near the grave of love_

Days get shorter. Nights grow longer. It will soon snow, and in spring there will be flowers. Alana has no reason to believe this, but she does anyway. Perhaps she is an optimist after all. Perhaps she is becoming one.

The world ends and reforms again. One night they see stars glittering in the sky, the first time since they left their house. Margot sings “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” to Morgan. Freddie falls asleep in the passenger seat. Alana drives.

It does not feel like tranquility but it is the closest she has come in a long time.

  


_14\. no more dying_

Life goes on. And on and on. Somewhere in a sleepy town they finally stop and park their car and do not reenter it. They stay up late in an unfamiliar room that will become familiar soon. Someone next door brings over a radio, says they can return it in the morning.

There’s a graveyard across the way. Old 80s tunes play as Alana watches the shadows creep across the grass. “People are dying to get in,” she says, an old joke, one she no longer laughs at.

“Not us,” says Margot.

Not them.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Moodboard] Ode to Joy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29360580) by [alexanderavery998](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexanderavery998/pseuds/alexanderavery998)




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